AgapePress) - Although funnyman Will Ferrell's new movie, Talladega Nights: the Ballad of Ricky Bobby, finished first at the box office this past weekend, the comedy was not a winner as far as Christian movie reviewer Ted Baehr is concerned. Baehr, publisher of Movieguide.org, is waving the yellow flag over the film about a dim-witted NASCAR racer with a gung-ho, win-at-all-costs attitude. According to Associated Press (AP) reports, the Christian media reviewer describes Talladega Nights as "a racist, bigoted work that ridicules the Bible Belt, Southern white men, Christianity, Jesus Christ, the family, and American masculinity." The Movieguide review of...

Christian Reviewer Rants About Liberal Hollywood LOS ANGELES -- Christian film reviewer Ted Baehr is no fan of this past weekend's top movie at the box office. Web Site: See Baehr's Review The Movieguide.org publisher said Will Ferrell's "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" is "a racist, bigoted work that ridicules the Bible Belt, Southern white men, Christianity, Jesus Christ, the family, and American masculinity." Baehr said the lead character's mocking prayer to baby Jesus shows anti-Christian bigotry and wonders why Hollywood isn't treating Will Ferrell like it's treated Mel Gibson, who has apologized for his anti-Semitic outburst. "Don't...

America struggles with its own evangelical Taliban At this late stage of the Bush rapture, American evangelism is a lot like the Exxon Valdez: Massive, sloshing with oily energy and not a little drunk on its power as it steers through hazards of its own designs. The moment evangelicals began tearing down the church-state wall, the rubble became their shoals. The wreck will be ugly. It will take years to mend because, as one of their own, Minnesota's Rev. Gregory Boyd, recently put it: "Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's...

Cervical cancer kills 200,000 women worldwide every year. So one would think that a promising new vaccine that prevents HPV infection (the leading cause of cervical cancer) would be accepted with open arms and a sigh of relief. But religious conservative groups in the US, who have their claws in the vaccine approval process, are less than excited. Why? Because being vaccinated against a potentially deadly disease could make girls slutty. Seriously. The national advisory committee on immunisation practices at the CDC is due to vote on whether to make the vaccine part of the standard shots alolescent girls receive....

A small American town is facing accusations of seeking to drive unmarried couples with children out of town on grounds they do not fit the local definition of a family. The brewing controversy in Black Jack, a town of 6,800 in the central state of Missouri, began unfolding earlier this year when Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving were denied an occupancy permit after moving into a four-bedroom house they had purchased. Local officials told the couple that the fact they were not married and had three children, one from Shelltrack's previous relationship, did not fit the town's definition of "family"....

THE DA VINCI CODE - BLASPHEMY HITS THE BIG SCREEN By Don Feder Posted May 19, 2006 The Da Vinci Code -- which opened today -- might be subtitled "Religion for Morons" or "Gnosticism Meets The New Age." It's fantasy posing as reality. The Sony Pictures film is blasphemous, defames the Catholic Church, and promotes neo-pagan Goddess worship. I find it offensive, and I'm not even a Christian. Director Ron Howard (who specializes in visual candy) assures us that Opie's opus will be true to the novel - a pretentious, overwritten piece of trash that makes Bridget Jones's Diary look...

War on Christianity has been declared. On which side of the battle line will you stand? The movie version of Dan Brown's book, THE DA VINCI CODE, is now in theaters. Although the movie significantly waters down the unrelenting, anti-Christian attacks and virulent paganism and goddess worship of the novel, it promotes the book and contains enough falsehoods and scurrilous conjecture to distort the truth about Jesus Christ, the Bible, Christianity, and God. That, coupled with the book’s popularity and some Christians’ ignorance about their faith, leads us to believe that the movie, and the attention it draws, will increase...

Jones and his family were under marshals' protection in December. In the days after U.S. Judge John E. Jones III issued his decision in Dover's intelligent design case, outraged people sent threatening e-mails to his office. Jones won't discuss details of the e-mails, or where they might have come from, but he said they concerned the U.S. Marshals Service. So, in the week before Christmas, marshals kept watch over Jones and his family. While no single e-mail may have reached the level of a direct threat, Jones said, the overall tone was so strident, marshals "simply determined the tenor was...

“Several news stories today are reporting on the decision by Comedy Central to pull a scheduled rerun of the ‘Bloody Mary’ episode that was shown on ‘South Park’ on December 7-10. The decision reflects what I asked for in our news release of December 8. Therefore, I commend Comedy Central for finally making the right decision. That it aired in the first place, however, does not speak well for the bigots responsible for creating it. “In our December 8 news release, I also said, ‘Remember, they chose to insult Our Blessed Mother on the eve of the Immaculate Conception, and...

Mirecki hospitalized after beating By Ron Knox, Eric Weslander (Contact) Originally published 05:37 p.m., December 5, 2005 Updated 06:31 p.m., December 5, 2005 Douglas County sheriff’s deputies are investigating the reported beating of a Kansas University professor who gained recent notoriety for his Internet tirades against Christian fundamentalists. Kansas University religious studies professor Paul Mirecki reported he was beaten by two men about 6:40 a.m. today on a roadside in rural Douglas County. In a series of interviews late this afternoon, Mirecki said the men who beat him were making references to the controversy that has propelled him into the...

WASHINGTON – Sexed-up, profanity-laced shows on cable and satellite TV should be for adult eyes only, and providers must do more to shield children or could find themselves facing indecency fines, the nation's top communications regulator says. "Parents need better and more tools to help them navigate the entertainment waters, particularly on cable and satellite TV," Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told Congress on Tuesday. Martin suggested several options, including a "family-friendly" tier of channels that would offer shows suitable for kids, such as the programs shown on the Nickelodeon channel. He also said cable and satellite providers could...

Pornography is Anything But a 'Victimless Crime' 12/8/2004 By Cheri Pierson Yecke How many more expert studies do we need to convince ourselves of this fact? Jud Fry -- one of the characters in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! lives in a shack that is papered with pornographic images. He is a loner, lacks social skills, and is feared by his neighbors. He is clearly capable of murder. This insight into the character of a porn addict hit the Broadway stage in 1943. Fast forward to 2004. A sexual assault and several attempted abductions of girls in the St. Paul,...